moist earth, and the closer he got, the more he realized that the hole was bigger than he had imagined. Ragged projections stuck out from the sheer rock face, giving the impression of rows of long teeth lining the throat of the crater. It was still too dim to see the depth of the hole, but shadows dropped into total blackness. He heard a movement behind him. His heart walloped against his ribs, then calmed a little when he saw it was!Koga. “Do me a favor,!Koga, when you sneak up on me, give me some warning, will you? I nearly jumped out of my skin!”
“You will need more than skin when the monster sucks you into its belly.”
“If you’re that scared, why didn’t you stay back there?”
“Because I am supposed to protect you.”
Max felt humbled. The boy had overcome his terror to honor his obligation; the least Max could do was put on a brave face and keep his own fear under control. He smiled. “It’s not a monster, I promise,!Koga. It’s just a geyser. Pressure builds up and blows water from an underground river, and my guess is, it’s the source of power for the fort. It’s called hydroelectric. Just like the huge dam they’ve built in the mountains.”
!Koga had that blank look which Max recognized as his own when Mr. Lewis the maths teacher tried to explain something beyond his comprehension. But before he could explain his own limited understanding of hydroelectric power, the ground began to shudder. It happened so quickly, the boys could not move. They reached out to steady themselves because now the vibration took away the strength in their legs. And with the jarring shudder came a growl, churning deep within the bottomless pit. Max steadied!Koga as they pushed their backs against one of the boulders to stop themselves from falling. A sucking, gurgling hiss of vapor spewed from the hole, drenching everything within fifty meters, its plume at least twenty meters high. The gossamer mist settled like dew and then, with the retreating water pressure, the plume plunged back downwards, belching air and noise as it receded. The explosion had lasted less than thirty seconds, but the power that drove up from beneath the ground rattled nerves as well as bones.
The suddenness of the eruption and the silence that quickly followed left them both mute. It took a moment for their ears to stop ringing. Max pulled a piece of something slimy off!Koga’s head, a ragged piece of weed, and presented it to him.
“A present from the monster,” he said, but!Koga was not smiling. Instead he was retreating slowly backwards, never taking his eyes from the crater.
“!Koga, it’s OK. I promise. It can’t harm us.”
!Koga stopped and shook his head. “We must leave this place now. That was a warning. We are not welcome here. It is a bad sign, it is as my father told me. A bad place.”
Max knew he could not argue with a belief so rooted in nature spirits. He would never deride such strong feelings. His experiences so far had taught him that the Bushmen’s secrets and their understanding of the natural world were far beyond anything he had ever come across. He deferred to his friend and nodded towards their resting place that overlooked the void.
“Come on, let’s get back up there.” He turned away but felt the light touch of!Koga’s hand.
“Wait. You are planning something.”
Max nodded. There was never going to be a good time to tell!Koga his plan. It might as well be now. The same dread of frightening his friend away still lingered. “I think my father could be in that fort. If he isn’t, then the people in there may know what happened to him. I reckon at the very least there have to be some clues.”
He gazed across the landscape. In an hour the sun would scorch and they would be hard pressed to find shelter, not so much from the heat as from anyone seeing them move across the ground.
“Max, if your father is in that place, how can we get inside? The men in there might be the same men who attacked us. They searched for us and we escaped, now you want to knock on their door. Are we giving up?”
“No, we’re going inside. There’s a secret passage that should lead straight into the fort. At least, I think there is. Come on, I’ll show you.”
He turned towards the hole, hoping!Koga would follow. When he reached the chasm’s edge he held back a couple of meters, nervous of the drop despite the firm footing the embedded rock provided. He turned.!Koga was walking forward nervously, as wary as an animal seeking to drink at a dangerous water hole. But he kept walking until he joined Max. They steadied each other and falteringly shuffled to the edge. It was a bottomless shaft, and saw-toothed sheets of rock clung to the sides.
A fetid, quivering air breathed malevolence on them. The sibilant whisper of the unseen water beckoned them closer.
So intense was Max’s concentration that!Koga thought he was about to step into the abyss. He whispered Max’s name. Max turned and faced him. “Follow me. I think I know what we have to do,” he said grimly.
Both boys now squatted at the other side of the crater, watching the rays shine down into the hole. Even if anyone in the fort was on lookout-and there was no reason to suppose they were-there would be little chance of being spotted. Not at that distance, and not with the glare of the sun directly in the watcher’s eyes. Max pointed. About sixty meters down was another hole which looked like the entrance to a cave, almost unnoticeable. It was no more than five meters across and as high again. Around it were about a dozen smaller holes, each no more than a meter wide, punched into the rock face. “I think that’s the underground passage,” Max said, pointing to the cavelike entrance.
“You cannot know that. You cannot be certain.”
“No, but look at this.” Max opened the hydrology chart. The thin, almost inconsequential line that wriggled across the plan from the Devil’s Breath to the fort could be nothing but the conduit they were now looking at. At least that’s what Max told himself. “I reckon the water gushes up, and it’s so powerful it forces itself into that hole- that’s like a channel, and I bet it’d be strong enough to power a turbine or something closer to the fort.”
!Koga looked doubtful.
Max scratched his head, his fingernails scraping away some of the caked dirt in his scalp. “At least I
“And those other holes?”
“Er … yeah. Not sure. Probably some kind of natural venting system. Y’see, I think it’s so powerful that when the water surges, it wallops down that big hole and either blows back pressure through the smaller ones, or …” Stuck again. What else? He looked at!Koga, who now, for the first time, smiled.
“You don’t know.”
“Not a hundred percent. I reckon it has something to do with releasing pressure from the main surge.” He hesitated and said almost to himself, “My dad would know.”
They sat quietly for some time.
Max finally spoke. “It doesn’t seem as though this thing is going to erupt again. Next one’s probably at the end of the day. Yeah, that makes sense, maybe. Twice a day. Morning and night.” It sounded as though he was trying to convince himself.
“We go? Down there?”
Max shook his head. He had already made his decision. “I’m going. On my own.”
!Koga stood up quickly. “No! I am not afraid!”
“No one said you were. I know I am, but I’ve been scared more times these last couple of weeks than I’ve ever been, so I can probably manage it once more.”
“I will not let you go alone. My place is with you.”
“But I can’t risk us both getting hurt or captured-not now,!Koga, not after all this bloody effort.”
!Koga went quiet and shook his head slowly. He would be held responsible if Max did not survive.
“You cannot stop me from following you, Max. You will not know I am there. I will be the hunter tracking your shadow.”
Max touched his shoulder. “!Koga, you will always be with me. I’ll carry your friendship with me. But I need you to do something else.” Max took out his father’s Ordnance Survey map. “You remember the place where the earth bleeds? And the marks my father made on his map. You know this is where Bushmen died. And all those
